


Every Mission Has Two Sides

by RednReady



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-08-19 19:39:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16540892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RednReady/pseuds/RednReady
Summary: my imagining of the Mr. Solomon episode from the other side





	1. Chapter 1

Scottie strode into the briefing room, Dumont trailing after. Geoffrey had just started his presentation. “I got a very interesting phone call today from the President of Lebanon. It seems that-”

Scottie tossed a file toward Nez and waved the board member off. “Whatever you're briefing my team on, it can wait. I have something better.” Dumont quickly pulled up the files she had given him. A blonde, serious looking man’s face filled the screen.

“Alexander Kirk.” A smile played on the corner of her lips. This was just the type of job she had needed to prove to an uncertain board that she could run the business even better in Howard’s….absence. The money, the connections alone…

“Kirk. The oil billionaire?” Nez asked.

Scottie nodded. “And get this: he’s Masha Rostova’s father.”

Geoffrey squinted. “Why is that name familiar?” Dumont brought up the next slide, a picture of Liz on the run.

“Because she was all over the news less than a year ago. You might remember her as Elizabeth Keen.”

“The accused terrorist? Alexander Kirk is her father?” Nez closed the file. "Okay. And?"

“Only she doesn’t know it.” Dumont punched up side by side wanted posters from the recent manhunt. “She was kidnapped when she was four years old. By Raymond Reddington. Missing for twenty-five years. Until now.” Scottie sat down with a smug expression on her face. “Kirk found out she was alive when he saw her on the news. And he is willing to pay top dollar for us to rescue her.”

Geoffrey dimly recalled a few stories told over drinks at the Christmas party. “Raymond Reddington. Don’t you know him?”

Scottie shrugged. “I've met him. Howard knew him better. I got the impression I rubbed him the wrong way, and I can't say I cared for him much either. Although I didn’t take him for the kidnapping type.”

“This seems far-fetched to me." Nez shook her head. "How do we even know what Kirk is saying is true?”

“He has the dna test to prove it.”

Geoffrey leaned forward. “Not that I’m not thrilled at the thought of Kirk pouring money into our company, but why does he need us to do this? Elizabeth Keen isn't exactly in hiding. I’m sure she’s listed.”

Scottie sighed. “It's not that simple. Reddington has successfully kept her hidden for twenty-five years, and as a result of the manhunt, he knows that Kirk must know she's alive and where she is. Which means he's prepared for this. Kirk is rich, but Reddington knows the underworld, and in an underworld’s game, Reddington has the advantage. He also has an extra trick up his sleeve.”

Kat took the hint and opened the door. Scottie looked at the two techs who had been sidelined when Dumont took over their equpiment. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to ask everyone who does not need to know more, to leave now.”

Kat followed them out, closing the door behind her. Geoffrey cocked an eyebrow. “Now I’m intrigued.”

Scottie stood and leaned on the table for emphasis. "Raymond Reddington has a deal with the FBI. He’s had it for years." They all exchanged looks.

"Kirk needs us, not just because Reddington is powerful in criminal circles, but because he’s untouchable in legal ones. He has double, triple walls of security placed around himself and this young woman." She turned back to the wanted posters on the screen.

"Understand, we need to get Masha Rostova to Alexander Kirk. And to do that, we need to not only deal with Reddington's mercenaries, but with the full force of whatever government agents he might call for backup.”


	2. Chapter 2

"First things first. We need to get the government off of our backs." Scottie walked around the glass table the next day, briefing her assembled team. "This must remain anonymous. The FBI wouldn't come after us publicly, but contracts would almost definitely be severed if they found out we were going after their prized informant."

"We need a distraction," Nez offered.

"Exactly. Something big enough to keep them and Reddington occupied, watching the other hand while we grab Masha." Scottie motioned to Bentley, a mild-mannered paper pusher with friends in the NSA. "Bentley talked to his contacts and Dumont did some follow up hacking. This is the result."

"Nukes." Bentley passed around a sheet. "The Air Force is transporting a nuclear weapon. There will be two shipments, one real, one decoy."

Scottie interjected. "We make it look like someone is after this nuke. I'd say that's a big enough distraction."

Nez leaned back. "Okay, but how do we make sure the Reddington people are the ones who get involved in this?"

"We leak it to Reddington himself," Scottie answered. 

Nez looked at her incredulously. "And just how do you propose we do that?"

Scottie smiled. She'd been waiting for that question.

"What I didn't tell you yesterday is that Kirk brought me this case a few months ago. But I waited to bring it to you for two reasons. This is the first." She nodded to Dumont.

A slender black man being led into a courthouse in chains appeared on the screen. "Mattias Solomon. Extremely wanted for crimes too numerous to list. Extremely talented. And, most importantly, extremely experienced in hunting down Reddington and Keen. A foot soldier for the famed ‘Cabal,’ he was convicted yesterday morning and is being transferred to prison in two days. I have it on good authority that he has been deemed a loose end. This is our chance."

Scottie stopped beside the screen, about to lay down the final piece of the plan. "We save his life. And in return, he tells us what he knows. He helps us with this mission." She motioned excitedly. "Think of the way it will look to Reddington. Solomon breaks free and he contacts an associate of Reddington's, inquiring about the shipment of nukes. Reddington would take it to the task force, guaranteed. It's too big not to. They'll investigate. We keep the FBI running after Solomon, and when they're occupied, we snatch Masha."

Nez pursed her lips. She hated to be the wet blanket in the room, but they were going against national intelligence agencies. They had to have every base covered. "It's a good plan. With just one flaw. If we involve Reddington's task force, then Elizabeth Keen will be involved as well. How are we going to take her when she's at the scene surrounded by agents?"

"That is the other reason I've waited to bring this case to you. Elizabeth Keen has been officially off field duty since she shot the Attorney General. But she has still been extremely involved, going into the field at times anyway. This, however...." She showed them a more recent surveillance picture of Liz, heavily pregnant.

"We had hoped to wait until she was on maternity leave, but the timing of Solomon's transfer means we have to move now. But this is close enough. As of next week, she'll be almost to term. I can guarantee you, she will not be in the field." Scottie beamed in triumph. It couldn't fail.

Nez smiled back. This could work.

Bentley was bent over the file on Solomon. "It says here that he once skinned a....oh my." He slapped the file shut and adjusted his glasses.

Scottie smirked. "I didn’t say he was a choir boy."

She pulled up the big chair. "This has to be ready to go two days from now. We have one shot to pull this off. Let's talk details."


	3. Chapter 3

"You shot up a church! In broad daylight! People were killed!" Even in the dark, Scottie could see Cynthia's eyes flashing, the vessels in her neck practically bulging. "Do you have any idea how much manure I had to shovel to cover that up? Who is going to pay for that?"

Susan tried to make her wire thin frame as tall and menacing as possible. This was her third face-to-face meeting with the White House Counsel since her mission had ended in absolute failure. It would not be her last.

She had just made the mistake of asking what was taking so long to bury what had been so badly botched.

“And what about my people? Hm? Who is going to pay for the soldiers that Reddington’s hired thugs gunned down just to get my attention? Are you going to bring him in? Drag your pet informant before a judge and make him answer for my dead men?” Scottie was met with stony silence. “I didn’t think so.”

Panabaker flexed her fists. She took a breath in an effort to calm down. “If you had an issue with Reddington, you should have come to me.”

Scottie threw her hands up in exasperation. “You wouldn’t have done anything. Except warn him. Threaten to pull our funding. Threaten other things." 

She stepped forward, determined to bring the point home, to put Panabaker in the defensive position. “Elizabeth Keen being on your task force was a condition for him being there, and you didn't care about anything other than Reddington being in your pocket, continuing to hand you criminals so that your people would look good arresting them on the evening news. The fact that Elizabeth Keen might have actually been a hostage of that man clearly didn't matter to you.”

Cynthia refused to give. “Elizabeth Keen was an FBI agent who had been more than enough trouble,” she ground out. “Does the murder of the Attorney General ring any bells? If all things were just in this world, that girl wouldn't have been at that church, she would have been in jail! If she had desperately wanted a career change, I'm sure she could have found a way.”

It was clear neither woman was going to admit defeat.

Scottie tried a new approach. She softened her tone. “What happened was unfortunate." Panabaker raised her eyebrows. "But this all could have been avoided if Reddington had simply let Masha go.”

"Let her go? Into the arms of armed guards with no real explanation whatsoever?"

Scottie paused to measure carefully what she might say next. She couldn't give Cynthia information that would lead her to certain... findings. But she had to do damage control.

She wasn't very good at damage control. She'd spent most of the last twenty-five years just trying to keep her various neuroses in check.

Howard was good at everything. Scottie was barely passable at pretending to be good at everything.

Before she could form a response, Panabaker moved on. “I’ve already told Assistant Director Cooper to stand down on his investigation, but he's harder to shake than a hungry snapping turtle. The death of an FBI agent, one of his own people? He may have stopped baying at the moon, but I can't guarantee he's dropped your scent.”

“Well, you need to make sure he does. That might be the only thing you actually have the power to do in this situation.” Scottie pointed a finger at her. “Because you won’t touch Reddington and you won’t touch us. You need us both. Like it or not, you need people to do what needs to be done when the law doesn't allow it. You've always understood that before. It's one of the reasons we've worked so well together in the past.”

"I worked with Howard in the past." Cynthia tilted her head. "From what I've seen in the last few months, your company is in a pretty pickle without him."

Scottie watched with pursed lips as Cynthia turned and strode smugly back to her car, knowing she had landed a blow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this isn't great, but i figure i should complete at least one story


	4. Chapter 4

"I need a better secretary," Susan Hargrave mumbled under her breath. She sorted through the last of the paperwork Kat had delivered earlier and began the arduous process of signing, initialing. The glamorous life of a CEO.

When she was almost through, she hit the intercom button connecting her with Kat's office. "Could you come pick up these papers please?"

Kat entered a minute later. Her boss had put on a brave face for the board, but she knew it was mostly a bluff. This Kirk mission had rattled her. 

Scottie handed off the pile "tell Simon to actually put them in order next time" and picked up her cell phone.

Kat turned to leave, but then stopped. “Does it bother you?"

Scottie didn't look up from her phone. "Does what bother me?"

"That people died."

She paused for a moment. Then continued scrolling through her contact list. "It’s not the first time there’s been a civilian casualty, and it won’t be the last. It can't always be avoided."

"But does it bother you?"

Scottie sighed sat back, frustrated. "Why? Would it make a difference?"

"It might for you."

Scottie’s eyes took on a far off expression. She picked at her bracelet and didn’t say a word.


End file.
